Saghacetus

Saghacetus is an extinct genus of basilosaurid early whale, fossils of which have been found in the Upper Eocene Qasr el Sagha Formation, Egypt.

Saghacetus

Macrophyseter · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
BasilosauridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cetacea
Life habit
aquatic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Cetacea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cetacea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cetacea

Time the record covers

At most 7.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 41.03 Mya and 33.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Eocene — about 10 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 10 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–38 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–37 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences35–35 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–34 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences41.5 Mya33.4 Mya

10 occurrences of Saghacetus on record, most of them in the Eocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

10 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Qasr el-Sagha — 29.58°N, 30.57°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.62°N, 30.69°EQasr el-Sagha — 29.66°N, 30.74°ESamlat — 23.30°N, 16.06°WGehlberg — 52.22°N, 11.01°E

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The named rock units Saghacetus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Saghacetus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Saghacetus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

74 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Saghacetus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

9 references

Each of the 10 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Saghacetus

Credit
Macrophyseter
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Saghacetus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBasilosauridae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gingerich 1992